Big tree blocking out the sunlight

well i bought a house with a big bit of land that i'm now planning to turn into a forest garden, and the first thing that i notice is that there are 2 massive oak trees on the southern side (i'm in Europe) which are going to block out most of the sunlight to the best bit of the available space that i have for new plants/trees. one of them, the larger one, is on my land, and the other is just on the other side of the fence. my question is, should i do something about this? prune my one heavily so that i have more light? chop it down entirely? that would seem like a bit of a shame and from what i know the tree is probably doing a lot of good for the soil just being there right? there are also a few pretty large pine trees (not sure which kind exactly yet) on the same side that i would be less hesitant to chop down since they really are just in the way, unless anyone thinks they're worth keeping for some reason?

this is my first garden but i've done a fair bit of reading so far. any thoughts welcome.

Welcome to Permies, Rich.
I would think an oak is worth keeping, especially if it's old. Are you certain they're going to shade out your garden (have you looked at sun trajectory for the year?)? Also don't forget to consider whether these trees might affect your home cooling needs, if they're providing shade in the summer.
Without seeing what your situation is it's hard to tell, but there are probably good options for how to use your space with just pruning or even to take advantage of shady areas, if you have plants that prefer shade during warmer weather.
I look forward to hearing more about what you've got!

I am guessing that you would have to totally butcher a mature oak to get enough sun for a garden.  But it depends on the garden spot and a few other variables.  

In my area, decently large trees are quite common so I think I'm more open to cutting one down if it allows me to grow a lot of food for myself.  Otherwise I'm just impacting the environment "somewhere else" and paying to ship that food to me.  So is cutting this tree a better worse situation and importing food?  If you can take it to a sawmill or have a portable sawmill come to you, it could turn into a lot of useful lumber.  None of this comes cheap (cutting and milling) though...

I know someone with a huge oak in the middle of their garden.  They wondered for years why they couldn't grow anything until I pointed out the issue.  They loved the tree so their solution was to buy another house with a big sunny area.  So there's always that option :)

It sounds like since the neighbor's tree is next to the tree in question there would not be much that could be done to help get sunlight to the garden area.

My suggestion would be to observe how much sunlight the sunniest part of the available space will get.  Usually, most plants like to get about 4 hours of sunlight.

Look for plants that like shade or are shade tolerant for areas with less sunlight.

This thread offers some shade-loving plants.

Here is a thread that might help you design your available space shade garden.

And maybe this one will offer some inspiration favorite shade-loving edible

Another suggestion would be to put some plants in container so that a few sunny corner would be utilized.

i’m not as familiar with european species, but if the trees are european white oak (Q. robur), those are excellent acorns for processing into food. part of permaculture is fitting the system to the existing situation. the oaks can be a great resource. it sounds to me like a focus on shade-tolerant food plants and acorn products is what the property is asking for.

agreed that cutting back a mature oak enough for ‘regular’ vegetables is huge job and it might as well be the whole tree at that point. though if one tree is on the neighbor’s property even that might not be enough.

I would just stick to pruning it. The soil concern is moreso just for parts of North America, I think, since plants across the forested regions of the whole Great Lakes- Eastern Canada- New England area evolved to work in that sort of environment & many risk going extinct without the proper soil requirements.

However, I would keep it for the sake of carbon sinking for as long as you can keep it alive. It won't do much good helping the environment on its own, but if you can work the rest of that forest in, that tree will serve the best in that function while the others you plant catch up. If you're planting wild trees, though, you may not have to worry too much about them getting the right sun. Only for domesticated fruit trees which are used to being pampered. Of course, they're very likely to decide to just grow straight up, or whatever direction they'd get the best light from, & then they could be harder to harvest for, or at awkward angles which could mean falling damage as they get bigger.

IF cutting the tree open up area for you to REplant a Food Forest. I say go for it!

I'm in a similar situation here and I know I want to REplant the Forest with Fruit and Nut Trees and it will feed me, the soil, and critters in due time...instead of looking pretty like those pines, beeches, and birches....which I do love....remember the goal right...we will replant trees!

** plus you can have a HUGE pile of firewood to heat the home and use the ashes to feed the soil...

You mentioned that there's a big bit of land along with your house. Is it possible there are other areas that you could plant if it turns out that this spot doesn't get enough light? What's to the East and West of the spot in question? Are there plants that could work well with the oak trees? Any edges that could be worked with?

If it were me, I would be inclined to observe for quite some time what actually goes on with light and other conditions around the oak trees before making any decisions. Preferably observing throughout all the seasons. It may not be as much a problem as you think. As has been mentioned, the oaks could be an amazing resource for reducing home cooling costs, acorns and certainly the leaves could be useful for mulching gardens or making leaf mold. The oaks probably also provide a lot of habitat for songbirds that could be helpful for insect control, benefits for the soil, etc. Not to mention an amazing, cool spot to hang out in the summer. If it were me, I would leave the tree and change my design to work with it. To me, mature trees, especially oaks, are invaluable and certainly irreplaceable.

I know when I got my space, I had my idea of where the garden "should" be. Since that area was full of invasive plants anyway, I set about making it so. That spot grew lots of food for the first year, but the creatures found the buffet the next year and the area I'd chosen was far too hard to fence in any sensible way. Plus, lots of native plants were spontaneously showing up there all the sudden and it felt wrong to interfere with them. But I had it in my mind that there was no other spot due to shade from various trees and because of my plans for all the areas. I felt stuck. After observing more, I finally realized that the answer was staring me in the face, it just required letting go of my idea of where things "should" be and working with what was there. No tree chopping required. When I started thinking about this new plan that had emerged, it removed so many problems I'd been puzzling over and simplified things. I guess that's a long way of saying taking the time to observe and work with nature can have pretty amazing results.

greg mosser wrote:i’m not as familiar with european species, but if the trees are european white oak (Q. robur), those are excellent acorns for processing into food. part of permaculture is fitting the system to the existing situation. the oaks can be a great resource. it sounds to me like a focus on shade-tolerant food plants and acorn products is what the property is asking for.

agreed that cutting back a mature oak enough for ‘regular’ vegetables is huge job and it might as well be the whole tree at that point. though if one tree is on the neighbor’s property even that might not be enough.

as far as i'm aware it's a european oak, as my limited understanding goes. i'll be doing a more thorough inventory of everything when spring starts and i can see the leaves etc.

i think this situation will probably resolve itself in that in Germany it's almost impossible to legally cut down a tree of that size because they're all of course home to birds and whatnot. the smaller trees which are in the way i will probably try to cut down on the sly bit by bit myself, but this one i would never be able to do without professional help, and they would certainly rat me out to the authorities or just not do it without permission first so i think i'm just going to have to live with it.

how does one go about processing acorns into food? i tried it once, having read that it's possible to just boil them up and rinse them repeatedly but i was not able to get it anywhere near something edible. although it did make my kitchen smell fantastic!

Heather Sharpe wrote:You mentioned that there's a big bit of land along with your house. Is it possible there are other areas that you could plant if it turns out that this spot doesn't get enough light? What's to the East and West of the spot in question? Are there plants that could work well with the oak trees? Any edges that could be worked with?

If it were me, I would be inclined to observe for quite some time what actually goes on with light and other conditions around the oak trees before making any decisions. Preferably observing throughout all the seasons. It may not be as much a problem as you think. As has been mentioned, the oaks could be an amazing resource for reducing home cooling costs, acorns and certainly the leaves could be useful for mulching gardens or making leaf mold. The oaks probably also provide a lot of habitat for songbirds that could be helpful for insect control, benefits for the soil, etc. Not to mention an amazing, cool spot to hang out in the summer. If it were me, I would leave the tree and change my design to work with it. To me, mature trees, especially oaks, are invaluable and certainly irreplaceable.

I know when I got my space, I had my idea of where the garden "should" be. Since that area was full of invasive plants anyway, I set about making it so. That spot grew lots of food for the first year, but the creatures found the buffet the next year and the area I'd chosen was far too hard to fence in any sensible way. Plus, lots of native plants were spontaneously showing up there all the sudden and it felt wrong to interfere with them. But I had it in my mind that there was no other spot due to shade from various trees and because of my plans for all the areas. I felt stuck. After observing more, I finally realized that the answer was staring me in the face, it just required letting go of my idea of where things "should" be and working with what was there. No tree chopping required. When I started thinking about this new plan that had emerged, it removed so many problems I'd been puzzling over and simplified things. I guess that's a long way of saying taking the time to observe and work with nature can have pretty amazing results.

i hear what you're saying. i think i'm going to have to keep it anyway for legal reasons. it really just does take up SO much of the available light that it hurts. my land is an almost exactly east-west lying strip of about 16x75 meters, and this tree, and almost all the others, are directly along the south facing side. so there's no shortage of shade whatsoever. none of these shade the house, i might add, that's in full view of the sun. yes there are other ones i can cut down myself which will open up other bits of the garden, but this one (and it's pal on the other side of the fence) really do seem to be in the "best" spot. anyway i'm going to start by making some kind of edible hedge on the north facing side, which should still get more than enough light i reckon.

Ben Gorski wrote:IF cutting the tree open up area for you to REplant a Food Forest. I say go for it!

I'm in a similar situation here and I know I want to REplant the Forest with Fruit and Nut Trees and it will feed me, the soil, and critters in due time...instead of looking pretty like those pines, beeches, and birches....which I do love....remember the goal right...we will replant trees!

** plus you can have a HUGE pile of firewood to heat the home and use the ashes to feed the soil...

yes i would love to cut it up for firewood, and actually even better would be for mushrooms which it would definitely be appropriate for. sadly though i think i can't because of legal reason. there are a bunch of other pines which are going to get the chop for sure as i'll be able to climb up them easily myselef with a chainsaw and just hope that nobody reports me:D

Mike Haasl wrote:I am guessing that you would have to totally butcher a mature oak to get enough sun for a garden.  But it depends on the garden spot and a few other variables.  

In my area, decently large trees are quite common so I think I'm more open to cutting one down if it allows me to grow a lot of food for myself.  Otherwise I'm just impacting the environment "somewhere else" and paying to ship that food to me.  So is cutting this tree a better worse situation and importing food?  If you can take it to a sawmill or have a portable sawmill come to you, it could turn into a lot of useful lumber.  None of this comes cheap (cutting and milling) though...

I know someone with a huge oak in the middle of their garden.  They wondered for years why they couldn't grow anything until I pointed out the issue.  They loved the tree so their solution was to buy another house with a big sunny area.  So there's always that option :)

yeah i honestly wouldn't feel bad chopping it down because there are loads of big trees around here. tree cover in general is excellent in Germany, even if a lot of it is monoculture. huge oaks like these ones are not uncommon at all... in fact most roads around here are lined with them on at least one side.

Tereza Okava wrote:Welcome to Permies, Rich.
I would think an oak is worth keeping, especially if it's old. Are you certain they're going to shade out your garden (have you looked at sun trajectory for the year?)? Also don't forget to consider whether these trees might affect your home cooling needs, if they're providing shade in the summer.
Without seeing what your situation is it's hard to tell, but there are probably good options for how to use your space with just pruning or even to take advantage of shady areas, if you have plants that prefer shade during warmer weather.
I look forward to hearing more about what you've got!

thanks, nice to be here! i have many questions.

the garden is very shady already because the east and south sides are almost entirely lined with large trees. my aim is to feed my family as much as possible, particularly with nuts/fruit, so anything i chop down is going to get replaced by something else over time. the large oak is too big for me to attempt to prune in any way myself (i'd almost certainly kill myself or destroy something in the process) and honestly i'm not in the mood to pay for pros to do it and anyway they probably wouldn't because i think it's protected by law (i have since learned).

Hi Rich, Welcome to Permies! You are so lucky to have a mature oak tree! I planted lots here, but it will probably be years till I get any crop from my trees.
There are lots of threads on Permies on creating acorn flour. It does seem that it depends a bit on the tree you start with - they have not been bred for 'sweetness' so some take more leaching than others. Here are a few threads that may be of use:
https://permies.com/t/171984/kitchen/Fast-Acorns-Edible-Flour-Acorn
https://permies.com/t/166015/Creating-Acorn-bread
https://permies.com/t/168819/kitchen/Processing-Acorns
https://permies.com/t/42450/Acorn-Flour-Attempt
https://permies.com/t/111814/kitchen/Gluten-Free-Acorn-Flour-video

Is it too late this year to have a go with the acorns from the trees? Do let us know how you get on.

I would second the suggestion on taking the time to observe this first year. If you moved in recently and have not observed it over a growing season there could be lots of other herbacious plants that you do not know about, damp spots, spots the local cat likes to sunbathe in, spots that form sheltered microclimates, and so on.
A fruiting hedge along the north side sounds like a nice idea. I suspect that alone will be plenty project to keep you busy!

Why did you buy the place in the first place?

Since this thread was started Jan 2022, I am curious, Rich, what did you decide to do with the trees?